title: The risk of mothers losing an only child in China.
abstract: China's one-child policy has been quite successful in bringing down the country's fertility level but has produced a large number of one-child families. The risk of one-child families losing their only child has not received enough attention. In this paper, using an extension of Goldman & Lord (1983)'s method to measure widowhood, period life-table data from China's 2000 population census are used to examine age-specific and cumulative probabilities of mothers losing their only child. It is found that a mother faces a 14.94% probability of losing a son, and 12.21% probability of losing a daughter. As the age of first-time mothers increases, the probability of losing a child declines. Urban and rural mothers have different indices regarding the loss of children. Based on these findings the prospects for China's one-child policy are discussed.
authors.affiliation: *Institute for Population and Development Studies,Xi'an Jiaotong University,China.
authors.forename: Quanbao
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: *Institute for Population and Development Studies,Xi'an Jiaotong University,China.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: †University Carlos III of Madrid,Spain.
authors.forename: Jesús J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Sánchez-Barricarte
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D046688:Child Mortality / Q000208:ethnology*; D002681:China; D016656:Family Planning Policy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009035:Mothers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009863:Only Child / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011336:Probability; D012306:Risk; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055815:Young Adult